In today’s digital age, brands need a carefully-designed website in order to grow their business. Gone are the days when having a skeleton website and filling it with keyword-stuffed articles worked. Now, websites should be able to offer a positive user experience (UX) in the form of an aesthetically-pleasing and intuitive design.
Keep in mind that your website is the place where prospects will learn more about your business. For others, it’s their first point of contact with you. It’s also where you nurture bottom-of-funnel leads so you can convert them into actual customers.
In short, your website is a great marketing tool that offers tons of benefits. Any digital marketing agency would 100% agree.
Nobody likes to stay on a messy website where they’ll have to figure out what to click on next. It will only take a minute or two for them to leave and head over to another website, which is most likely that of your competitor. That’s certainly the last thing you want to happen.
This is why web design should be an integral part of your digital marketing strategy.
In this article, you will find out how impactful your web design is to your business, and how it can help it succeed not just online, but offline as well. We’ve rounded up five benefits of having a well-crafted website that will inspire you to redesign your website ASAP.
Ready to explore these perks with us? Let’s dive right in!
Table of Contents
1. Your Web Design Leaves a Lasting Impression
Here’s a fact: First impressions can make or break a brand. And, with your website being the first touchpoint for most of your potential customers, you’ll definitely want to design it in the best possible way – one that will get your visitors excited to navigate.
50 milliseconds. That’s all it takes for people to form a first impression of your website design. As soon as they step foot on your virtual property, they’ll develop a perception of your brand and image. If your web design doesn’t evoke any positive feelings, then it will create a bad impression, affecting your business.
Winning your target audience means having to put your best foot forward. In this case, you will need to do everything you can to ensure that your web design captivates them. Your goal is to have your website reflect who you are as a brand.
2. Your Web Design Helps You Boost Your Conversions
A good web design is instrumental in increasing conversions. Your web design, when optimized properly for conversion, can directly impact your overall conversion rate.
Websites that are visually appealing and offer a seamless navigation structure drive visitors to continue browsing the rest, ultimately leading to more conversions in terms of sales and subscriptions.
On the other hand, websites that provide a poor user experience and aren’t too pleasing to the eyes tend to stop users from exploring further. They lose interest in the website and bounce to another, which means they wouldn’t be able to learn more about the brand. And so, converting them is no longer possible for the brand.
The key is to maintain the balance between simplicity and functionality. If you’re considering your website’s conversion rate, you must see to it that your design is simple enough to satisfy UX but complex enough to satisfy conversion rate optimization (CRO).
Making your design complex to achieve high functionality is never a wise idea, as it will slow down the speed of your website. Keeping it too simple won’t do you any favor, either; your visitors will likely find it boring, ruining your chances of converting them.
Although the idea of a website template solution sounds simple and cost-effective, it can actually cause a negative impact on the user experience and overall conversion rate. So, as much as you’d like to take a shortcut, it’s best not to.
3. Your Web Design Goes Hand-in-Hand with SEO
A good web design plays an essential role in the success of a website. However, it’s search engine optimization (SEO) that attracts people to the website. Pair them both together and your website will be on its way to the top.
Many digital marketers have this notion that web design elements have completely nothing to do with search engine rankings. What they don’t realize is that web design actually helps improve rankings.
If you happen to be one of those marketers, it’s time to change that assumption.
It’s pretty simple, really: Good design boosts a website’s ranking, bad design pushes it down. Once Google and other search engines see that your site follows the best SEO and website practices, they’ll reward you by skyrocketing your rank.
Another thing to remember is that Google loves websites that offer a pleasant user experience. Their bots are getting smarter and smarter by the day, and they know an intuitive web design when they see one. As a matter of fact, mimicking the human user experience is something they’ve already mastered.
For instance, if humans don’t like a certain website due to its slow loading speed, outdated content, and frustrating navigation, bots will also feel the same way. Whereas human users will end up leaving the page, bots will punish you with a poor ranking.
User experience has become a major investment for brands. People expect an authentic and intuitive website that reflects not just the brand’s vision, but its perspective and service level as well. A/B testing and user testing are strategic plans that will ensure the ideal user experience everyone’s looking for.
4. Your Web Design Lets You Stand Out from Your Competition
Again, your web design should reflect who you are as a brand. The more unique you are, the more your target audience wants to know about you.
That’s why you should stay true to yourself when designing your website. By that, we mean sticking to your principles instead of following what everyone in your industry is doing – and of course, keeping your design as distinctive as possible.
Also, you’ll want to update your website every now and then. While there’s no doubt that leaving a meaningful impression is a great way to kick things off with your prospective customers, it’s still crucial to give it an upgrade, especially since web design is always evolving in the world of business.
To truly stand out and outshine your competitors, your website should adopt the latest features in web design – it should provide dynamic UX, work properly on all types of mobile devices, and generate a lot of buzz with its one-of-a-kind concept.
Strong branding and consistent use of fonts, colors, and layout will set you apart from the rest of the pack, getting people intrigued about your brand. They will easily remember you, and you might even be the first name that enters their mind when they’re thinking of a product you offer.
5. Your Web Design Helps You Establish Trust with Your Visitors
A website with a clean and well-organized web design, as well as valuable and up-to-date content, is more than often seen by people as trustworthy and authoritative. It provides a one-two punch, allowing visitors to erase any reservations they may have about the business, and develop a bond with them instead.
If your audience loves everything about your web design, from how it looks and functions, then they will form this perception of you as a brand they can totally support and count on. They will be exploring your pages, giving themselves an opportunity to get acquainted with you and what you’re offering.
On the contrary, a website that gives off bad vibes will only shoo visitors away. If your site is cluttered and has several elements that turn people off (such as ugly or irrelevant images, content that’s hard to read or understand, and unclear brand messaging), you’ll kill your hopes of converting them into paying customers.
Brand influence is a critical part when it comes to building a brand, especially if you’re marketing to millennials and Gen Z. These two generations want brands that they can relate to, brands that make them feel good to associate with.
Nurturing your relationships by engaging your audience with your website increases your odds of turning them into advocates. At the same time, sharing its link on your social media can increase your social media followers easily.
In turn, this immensely helps when you’re launching new products, keeping retention up, gaining new prospects and customers through word of mouth, and impacting the overall bottom line.
There You Have It!
Now you know why web design is crucial in digital marketing!
Whether it’s improving SEO, providing a good user experience, branding, or increasing conversion rates, web design can help dictate how your target audience perceives and receives your brand.
However, putting the wrong step in web design can hurt your brand image, which is why you’ll need a strong web design strategy to implement.
Don’t hesitate to consult a seo agency if web design is something that’s outside of your specialization. Especially if you have no web design team, hiring a professional team with years of experience in creative design services will help your business in ways you can’t imagine.
